Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
The Great Escape
When you live in Israel, you get used to a paper full of bad news. But this story made my hair stand on end: there was a mass escape of about 50 crocodiles from a wild-life park in the Jordan Valley. They think they were all recaptured. The article then went on to regale us with Nature Authority personnel fretting over the possibility of escaped crocs mating and setting up a nest in the wild. It seems – I swear I did not know this – that they were an indigenous species until they were hunted to extinction in the beginning of the 20th century.
I parsed the article carefully. “About 50” means they don’t know exactly how many animals there were. So they “think” they were all recaptured, but they don’t know that either. The Nature guys said all those keeping crocodiles must invest in better fences. That means there are even more of them out there, plotting to get loose.
I like animals and although I don’t feel warm and fuzzy about reptiles, I’m not afraid of most of them. No, not even snakes. If I see one I prefer to just let it go on its way, no harm, no foul. But crocodiles and alligators are different. They’re fast, they’re ruthless, they have powerful jaws with lots of big teeth. And most importantly, they’re hunting you. By “you” I mean me. They scare the bejuices out of me. I don’t even like the look of alligator shoes.
It’s a fair hike due west to here from the Jordan Valley. But the kibbutz is bordered by reasonably substantial stream that runs east-to-west, so I’m not taking any chances. When I open my door, I look left and right – no crocs? – ok, I can proceed to leave the house. Still, I don’t like living with this anxiety. So my next question is, is Crocodile Dundee a real person and does he make house calls?
I parsed the article carefully. “About 50” means they don’t know exactly how many animals there were. So they “think” they were all recaptured, but they don’t know that either. The Nature guys said all those keeping crocodiles must invest in better fences. That means there are even more of them out there, plotting to get loose.
I like animals and although I don’t feel warm and fuzzy about reptiles, I’m not afraid of most of them. No, not even snakes. If I see one I prefer to just let it go on its way, no harm, no foul. But crocodiles and alligators are different. They’re fast, they’re ruthless, they have powerful jaws with lots of big teeth. And most importantly, they’re hunting you. By “you” I mean me. They scare the bejuices out of me. I don’t even like the look of alligator shoes.
It’s a fair hike due west to here from the Jordan Valley. But the kibbutz is bordered by reasonably substantial stream that runs east-to-west, so I’m not taking any chances. When I open my door, I look left and right – no crocs? – ok, I can proceed to leave the house. Still, I don’t like living with this anxiety. So my next question is, is Crocodile Dundee a real person and does he make house calls?
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Frankengrass
Lawns in Hometown, America were delicate things. People, usually men, would spend their weekends caring for and obsessing over them, sitting up nights to admire them. They had to be fertilized, mowed and raked, all the while maintaining constant vigilance for the dreaded crabgrass. If all was done perfectly, you would wind up with a proper, well-manicured lawn that must not be walked on. Grass plants are tender and liable to die if tread upon.
The backyard of my childhood home was more mud than grass for just the reason that it couldn’t withstand stomping children’s feet. When I was finally old enough for “Keep off the grass!” to be reasonably enforceable, my father set about replanting the lawn with scientific precision. The ground was aerated and prepared and then the grass seed mixture was planted. It included Kentucky bluegrass which I did expect to be blue. It wasn’t.
Israeli grass is a whole different species. Not only will walking on it not kill it, you can’t kill it. At least, not for long. It always comes back. The stuff is relentless, growing runners with new grass plants on them that cannot be stopped. While mowing does give you the illusion of control, the problem is where the lawn meets the borders. There the tendrils advance without mercy, swallowing everything in their path. Like the Little Prince and his baobabs, if you relax your attention for even a moment you’re going to be inundated. The kibbutz gardeners do what they can to help. A few times a year a guy comes around with a tank of Agent Orange and sprays it around the borders, which does help for a little while. But it always comes back.
I don’t have any proof, but I suspect this grass is a mutant strain, the result of genetic engineering gone wrong. Maybe somebody, with the best of intentions, wanted to develop a variety that could withstand the Israeli climate and a few dozen tanks rolling over it. I’m just speculating. But having just spent the afternoon battling the tenacious tendrils, I’m convinced. This stuff has Mad Scientist written all over it.
The backyard of my childhood home was more mud than grass for just the reason that it couldn’t withstand stomping children’s feet. When I was finally old enough for “Keep off the grass!” to be reasonably enforceable, my father set about replanting the lawn with scientific precision. The ground was aerated and prepared and then the grass seed mixture was planted. It included Kentucky bluegrass which I did expect to be blue. It wasn’t.
Israeli grass is a whole different species. Not only will walking on it not kill it, you can’t kill it. At least, not for long. It always comes back. The stuff is relentless, growing runners with new grass plants on them that cannot be stopped. While mowing does give you the illusion of control, the problem is where the lawn meets the borders. There the tendrils advance without mercy, swallowing everything in their path. Like the Little Prince and his baobabs, if you relax your attention for even a moment you’re going to be inundated. The kibbutz gardeners do what they can to help. A few times a year a guy comes around with a tank of Agent Orange and sprays it around the borders, which does help for a little while. But it always comes back.
I don’t have any proof, but I suspect this grass is a mutant strain, the result of genetic engineering gone wrong. Maybe somebody, with the best of intentions, wanted to develop a variety that could withstand the Israeli climate and a few dozen tanks rolling over it. I’m just speculating. But having just spent the afternoon battling the tenacious tendrils, I’m convinced. This stuff has Mad Scientist written all over it.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Do Not Try This At Home
What do you suppose would happen if you boiled some eggs on the stove and left them there boiling for a couple of hours until all the water evaporated and the temperature continued to rise…? I found out recently when I put a pan of them to boil, all neatly arranged, and then… forgot all about them.
I don’t actually know much about cooking. My mother was a woman of many wonderful qualities, but she wasn’t really a cook. Most of what I know I learned from watching the amazing Julia Child. “The French Chef” was one of those iconic shows of the 70’s that made an indelible impression on everyone who watched. She took you step by step though the process of whatever she was making, explaining so simply how to do it, what it should look like and, most importantly for me, how to fix it if it went wrong. From Julia I learned how to make a roux and turn it into a fabulous sauce, how to tell if a fish is fresh and how to boil eggs.
I still do it the way Julia said, first punching a tiny hole in the large end to release the air bubble which is what pushes the egg out into the water if it cracks and then boiling for 12 minutes, no more, no less. That is, until senility took over. It’s not even that I was doing anything important, just the usual afternoon stuff. Toward the end, I did smell the scent of something odd cooking. But I live next to a restaurant, I’m sort of used to that.
And then it happened – boom! What was that? Are kids playing with fireworks? BOOM! Is that Hizbullah in the parking lot? I looked toward the window to see what was going on – and then I saw it. The EGGS! They were exploding there on the stove. I got them to the sink as quickly as I could, hoping to save the pan if nothing else, the water hissing and crackling as it hit. Peering through the steam, I saw that the pan could be cleaned and so no real damage was done. But I was dumbstruck by my own dementia. And this surprised even me – exploded eggs are still edible.
I don’t actually know much about cooking. My mother was a woman of many wonderful qualities, but she wasn’t really a cook. Most of what I know I learned from watching the amazing Julia Child. “The French Chef” was one of those iconic shows of the 70’s that made an indelible impression on everyone who watched. She took you step by step though the process of whatever she was making, explaining so simply how to do it, what it should look like and, most importantly for me, how to fix it if it went wrong. From Julia I learned how to make a roux and turn it into a fabulous sauce, how to tell if a fish is fresh and how to boil eggs.
I still do it the way Julia said, first punching a tiny hole in the large end to release the air bubble which is what pushes the egg out into the water if it cracks and then boiling for 12 minutes, no more, no less. That is, until senility took over. It’s not even that I was doing anything important, just the usual afternoon stuff. Toward the end, I did smell the scent of something odd cooking. But I live next to a restaurant, I’m sort of used to that.
And then it happened – boom! What was that? Are kids playing with fireworks? BOOM! Is that Hizbullah in the parking lot? I looked toward the window to see what was going on – and then I saw it. The EGGS! They were exploding there on the stove. I got them to the sink as quickly as I could, hoping to save the pan if nothing else, the water hissing and crackling as it hit. Peering through the steam, I saw that the pan could be cleaned and so no real damage was done. But I was dumbstruck by my own dementia. And this surprised even me – exploded eggs are still edible.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Really Cheesy
This is what Israelis eat for breakfast: you take a cucumber and a tomato and chop them into itsy bitsy pieces, such that they can be swallowed without any meaningful intervention of teeth, and douse them with olive oil and lemon juice. Then you plop some cottage cheese on top or something called white cheese which looks and tastes exactly like the technically non-toxic white paste they made you use in kindergarten for your artwork. Coincidently, this is also what many eat for dinner. Just the thought of facing that in the mornings is enough to turn me and, I think most of my fellow Americans, green – and I don’t mean that in a good way.
Luckily, today there is no lack of granola and Count Chocula to keep me from aggravated nausea. But back in the early days of the state, everyone was poor and food was not so easy to come by. You pretty much ate what you could grow, namely cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplants, or what you could coax from a cow. As often happens, necessity has become tradition, hence the centrality of dairy products to the Israeli diet. And since this is Israel, you’re expected to pay through the nose for them. So imagine my surprise when I woke up one morning to the Cottage Cheese Rebellion.
It seems the price of humble “cottage,” as it’s called, has doubled recently – I wouldn’t know because I thought it was way overpriced long before this and refused to buy it – and one righteous guy has had enough. He has organized a boycott on Facebook that has become wildly popular. Now suddenly the media are discovering that we pay twice as much as other countries for all kinds of stuff. It’s looking like the beginnings of a consumer revolution and it’s coming none too soon.
Even the Knesset is getting into the act, responding in true political style with emergency rhetoric. They’re threatening to legislate this, control that, while desperately looking for something more to tax. But even they have not proved totally useless: our Knesset has taken great pains to publish a recipe for making cottage cheese at home. I knew they’d come to the rescue. Now, where did I put my cheesecloth?
Luckily, today there is no lack of granola and Count Chocula to keep me from aggravated nausea. But back in the early days of the state, everyone was poor and food was not so easy to come by. You pretty much ate what you could grow, namely cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplants, or what you could coax from a cow. As often happens, necessity has become tradition, hence the centrality of dairy products to the Israeli diet. And since this is Israel, you’re expected to pay through the nose for them. So imagine my surprise when I woke up one morning to the Cottage Cheese Rebellion.
It seems the price of humble “cottage,” as it’s called, has doubled recently – I wouldn’t know because I thought it was way overpriced long before this and refused to buy it – and one righteous guy has had enough. He has organized a boycott on Facebook that has become wildly popular. Now suddenly the media are discovering that we pay twice as much as other countries for all kinds of stuff. It’s looking like the beginnings of a consumer revolution and it’s coming none too soon.
Even the Knesset is getting into the act, responding in true political style with emergency rhetoric. They’re threatening to legislate this, control that, while desperately looking for something more to tax. But even they have not proved totally useless: our Knesset has taken great pains to publish a recipe for making cottage cheese at home. I knew they’d come to the rescue. Now, where did I put my cheesecloth?
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Get Me to the Church on Time
Like every other little girl in the western world, I grew up on the Cinderella story. Back then, Walt Disney was king. After seeing the movie of course I had to have all the paraphernalia that went with it. My favorite was the record and the accompanying book with all the beautiful images from the film and a helpful mouse named Gus to tell you when to turn the pages. So you know when this generation’s royal wedding made it to the screen, I was there, glued to my TV.
Kate was a beautiful bride and Prince William was as handsome as he needed to be. Most importantly from my perspective, the dress was fabulous. Diana’s dress, since comparisons with the previous generation are unavoidable, was hideous. It was a style best described as Hillbilly Chic with ruffles, huge, puffy sleeves and a bow in front. It looked like it was designed by Granny Clampett. But Kate’s was elegant and lovely. What a relief!
Speaking of the Clampetts, there were those family members who should have been left at home. I mean, of course, the princesses in the hats – my sister calls them the ugly stepsisters. It’s never a good thing to leave the palace with chunks of it stuck to your head. You’d think they would have learned that in Etiquette 101. And while I’m on the subject of Just Plain Weird, what was with those trees in the church? Couldn’t they at least have been flowering varieties? It is spring after all.
But I’m nit-picking. It was a lovely, romantic occasion and I wish the young couple boundless happiness. Mind you, I hate monarchy and aristocracy in principle. Like any self-respecting, free-born American I believe that all are created equal and rebel at the idea that an in-bred aristocrat has the right to lord it over me just because an ancestor did something worthy 400 years ago. As an old Yiddish saying has it, aristocracy and carrots have one thing in common: the best part is under the ground.
Kate was a beautiful bride and Prince William was as handsome as he needed to be. Most importantly from my perspective, the dress was fabulous. Diana’s dress, since comparisons with the previous generation are unavoidable, was hideous. It was a style best described as Hillbilly Chic with ruffles, huge, puffy sleeves and a bow in front. It looked like it was designed by Granny Clampett. But Kate’s was elegant and lovely. What a relief!
Speaking of the Clampetts, there were those family members who should have been left at home. I mean, of course, the princesses in the hats – my sister calls them the ugly stepsisters. It’s never a good thing to leave the palace with chunks of it stuck to your head. You’d think they would have learned that in Etiquette 101. And while I’m on the subject of Just Plain Weird, what was with those trees in the church? Couldn’t they at least have been flowering varieties? It is spring after all.
But I’m nit-picking. It was a lovely, romantic occasion and I wish the young couple boundless happiness. Mind you, I hate monarchy and aristocracy in principle. Like any self-respecting, free-born American I believe that all are created equal and rebel at the idea that an in-bred aristocrat has the right to lord it over me just because an ancestor did something worthy 400 years ago. As an old Yiddish saying has it, aristocracy and carrots have one thing in common: the best part is under the ground.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
More Matza, Less Affliction
We’ve survived another Pesach. Getting through a whole week with no bread, no breaded schnitzel and no Pepperidge Farm is a struggle. The only thing that can get a carb-lover through is matza, also known as the bread of affliction.
Affliction was never so delicious, especially when spread with the beet-colored horseradish that is supposed to represent the bitterness of slavery. I look forward to this stuff all year. So I was unprepared when my Pesach indulgence hit a snag: the kibbutz store has a new manager, an earnest young woman, who apparently has not got the ordering thing down pat.
I bought some matzot the weekend before the holiday. It was rather early, I thought, but they had it, so why not? Little did I know that this would be all I would see for the entire holiday. From then on there was not a crumb to be found. When the rumor would spread that there was again matzot in the store, mobs of kibbutzniks would descend on the hapless clerks. Since matza is brittle stuff, it doesn’t really lend itself to a tug of war, but a few would emerge with the prized packages while most would leave disappointed.
One young clerk tried in true Stalinist fashion to tell me, as she pried my fingers from her throat, that the problem was not the ordering, it was that people were buying too much. I was nonplussed. There is only so much matza a person, even I, can eat. So if by some miracle the clerk had been right, what were people doing with the stuff? Tiling their roofs? Playing square Frisbee? Breaking it into poker chips? My mind went back to our forefathers wandering in the desert. If we have this much trouble with the bread of affliction, what do you suppose happened to them when they ran short of manna from heaven?
Affliction was never so delicious, especially when spread with the beet-colored horseradish that is supposed to represent the bitterness of slavery. I look forward to this stuff all year. So I was unprepared when my Pesach indulgence hit a snag: the kibbutz store has a new manager, an earnest young woman, who apparently has not got the ordering thing down pat.
I bought some matzot the weekend before the holiday. It was rather early, I thought, but they had it, so why not? Little did I know that this would be all I would see for the entire holiday. From then on there was not a crumb to be found. When the rumor would spread that there was again matzot in the store, mobs of kibbutzniks would descend on the hapless clerks. Since matza is brittle stuff, it doesn’t really lend itself to a tug of war, but a few would emerge with the prized packages while most would leave disappointed.
One young clerk tried in true Stalinist fashion to tell me, as she pried my fingers from her throat, that the problem was not the ordering, it was that people were buying too much. I was nonplussed. There is only so much matza a person, even I, can eat. So if by some miracle the clerk had been right, what were people doing with the stuff? Tiling their roofs? Playing square Frisbee? Breaking it into poker chips? My mind went back to our forefathers wandering in the desert. If we have this much trouble with the bread of affliction, what do you suppose happened to them when they ran short of manna from heaven?
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Waiting for the Professor
I said I’d expound on my experience of private medicine and, true to my word, here it is. The Herzliya Medical Center is very nicely appointed. The beds are actually comfortable with electric controls of the kind that have been standard in the US for the past 60 years. Compare this to the iron thing you had to pull with considerable might to raise the head in the Health Fund hospital and you can see why I was happy. The bathrooms are in the rooms, instead of the hall, and you have to share with only 2 other people. Best of all, the nurses were attentive, helpful and plentiful. In other words, the difference between socialized and private medicine is night and day.
The only frustration, and it was a big one, involved waiting for the doctor. I should have known this would be a sore point from the outset. When I went for my first consultation with him, a surgeon who held the exalted rank of professor, a title of which Israelis have a Teutonic awe, I arrived to find the tiny waiting room stuffed with people and the doctor nowhere to be found. He finally turned up about an hour later. I thought this was bad, but I didn’t know that this was the luckiest I would get with him.
When the day arrived for my operation, I got there a little bit earlier than my 3pm appointment, just to be sure that I wouldn’t keep the doctor and his scalpel waiting. The check-in went smoothly and then I was sent to the ward where everything ground to a halt. I was told to sit in the waiting room – this place was equipped with television monitors that gave patient status updates like the arrivals and departures on an airport display – where I waited. Then I waited some more. Then along about 5pm the elevator doors opened and in strolled the professor. He was just arriving! I continued to wait another hour and a half until someone came and fetched me.
Fast forward to the next day when I’m waiting to be released. Around about noon I got the bad news: the doctor won’t get there to make his rounds until 6 or 7pm. After alerting the media to get the message through to those standing by to pick me up, I settled in for a more or less comfortable wait. 6 o’clock came, 7 o’clock came and went. No professor. The guy finally turns up at 9pm. There was no point in being surly. I thanked him, took my paperwork and made a dash for freedom. The bottom line: the private Herzliya Medical Center is infinitely nicer and more comfortable than the socialist option. But unless you have the patience of Job, avoid the professors.
The only frustration, and it was a big one, involved waiting for the doctor. I should have known this would be a sore point from the outset. When I went for my first consultation with him, a surgeon who held the exalted rank of professor, a title of which Israelis have a Teutonic awe, I arrived to find the tiny waiting room stuffed with people and the doctor nowhere to be found. He finally turned up about an hour later. I thought this was bad, but I didn’t know that this was the luckiest I would get with him.
When the day arrived for my operation, I got there a little bit earlier than my 3pm appointment, just to be sure that I wouldn’t keep the doctor and his scalpel waiting. The check-in went smoothly and then I was sent to the ward where everything ground to a halt. I was told to sit in the waiting room – this place was equipped with television monitors that gave patient status updates like the arrivals and departures on an airport display – where I waited. Then I waited some more. Then along about 5pm the elevator doors opened and in strolled the professor. He was just arriving! I continued to wait another hour and a half until someone came and fetched me.
Fast forward to the next day when I’m waiting to be released. Around about noon I got the bad news: the doctor won’t get there to make his rounds until 6 or 7pm. After alerting the media to get the message through to those standing by to pick me up, I settled in for a more or less comfortable wait. 6 o’clock came, 7 o’clock came and went. No professor. The guy finally turns up at 9pm. There was no point in being surly. I thanked him, took my paperwork and made a dash for freedom. The bottom line: the private Herzliya Medical Center is infinitely nicer and more comfortable than the socialist option. But unless you have the patience of Job, avoid the professors.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Don't Mask, Don't Tell
I picked up my new gas mask on Sunday. I panicked when I first saw the notice of the distribution, not because of the mask and what it represents, but because it said to bring the receipt I got when I turned in my old one. That was an eternity ago. Well, four years. How can anyone expect me to remember where I put a flipping piece of paper so long ago?
That old mask had been hard to part with, like a member of the family. We bonded during the first Gulf War when I had to take it everywhere I went. At night when the inevitable air raid siren signaled that Saddam was hurling yet another scud at us, the mask was actually comforting, although the routine did get a little old toward the end when it was clear there would not be chemical weapons in the missiles. The last air raid or two I told my husband to leave me alone and let me sleep. I wasn’t going to play anymore.
Now I tried to remain calm. I thought, if I was smart – and how often can I claim that? – I wedged the receipt in back of my identity card. I started pulling out all sorts of folded-up bits of paper, some of them historic, until finally the last one which was indeed what I’d been looking for. I would be able to get my new mask without having to throw myself on the mercy of the court and plead senility or some other embarrassing mental defect.
As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. The soldier-in-charge wasn’t at all interested in my receipt. He only wanted the identity card. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or just really annoyed. But I spent minutes looking for this, I protested. He shrugged. So after years of masklessness, I again have this item of personal protection, nestled in my shoe closet among the footwear. Let’s hope it stays there, undisturbed.
That old mask had been hard to part with, like a member of the family. We bonded during the first Gulf War when I had to take it everywhere I went. At night when the inevitable air raid siren signaled that Saddam was hurling yet another scud at us, the mask was actually comforting, although the routine did get a little old toward the end when it was clear there would not be chemical weapons in the missiles. The last air raid or two I told my husband to leave me alone and let me sleep. I wasn’t going to play anymore.
Now I tried to remain calm. I thought, if I was smart – and how often can I claim that? – I wedged the receipt in back of my identity card. I started pulling out all sorts of folded-up bits of paper, some of them historic, until finally the last one which was indeed what I’d been looking for. I would be able to get my new mask without having to throw myself on the mercy of the court and plead senility or some other embarrassing mental defect.
As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. The soldier-in-charge wasn’t at all interested in my receipt. He only wanted the identity card. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or just really annoyed. But I spent minutes looking for this, I protested. He shrugged. So after years of masklessness, I again have this item of personal protection, nestled in my shoe closet among the footwear. Let’s hope it stays there, undisturbed.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
We Are Not Amused
My sister asks why I have not blogged about my recent 30-hour sojourn in the belly of socialized medicine. It’s a good question. The thing is, I’m not sure I can accurately describe the experience of a Middle Eastern hospital to her or anyone else who hasn’t experienced it firsthand.
To start with, there is no such thing as a semi-private room. I was in a new ward so there were only four beds to a room instead of six. The bed itself was reclaimed from a Nottingham dungeon, consisting of metal strips on a frame topped with a thin mattress filled with lumpy pellets. But even if it had been comfortable, which it wasn’t, it would have been like trying to sleep in a bus station, there being also no such things as visiting hours. Everybody’s whole clan comes meandering through at any old time.
Then there was that one of my roommates who did not stop talking. Ever. Yes, she even talked in her sleep. For the first twelve hours or so we heard in minute detail how she cooks kebab, how she makes humus, where to buy the best pita – all of this to a roomful of fasting people in surgical ward. Then we heard replayed conversations with her daughter on clothes, where to park the car, her uncle’s business dealings with… Here I punctured my own eardrums. At one point I opened my eyes to find her standing at the foot of my bed wanting to know what was wrong with me. “How did you get that? What have you been lifting? Don’t you take care of yourself?” Only in the Middle East could you be expected to justify your life to a total stranger.
All of this would have been worth it, albeit annoying, if I had been treated. But I wasn’t. After being given an injection in the emergency room to stop my screaming, I was transferred to the ward where I was dumped on a bed and left. Eight hours later, a doctor wandered by, pushed on my stomach and left. I saw only one nurse on the ward and nobody would give me any information. The next day I was blithely told that they had no time to fix my problem and were sending me home. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
But when the elevator doors opened on the ground floor I couldn’t believe what I saw: a mall! There were bookstores, drug stores, clothing stores, restaurants – civilization! There was even a MacDonald’s. Yes, MacDonald’s in a hospital. You can chow down on a Big Mac and then go right upstairs and take your chances on a triple bypass. It’s very efficient, probably the only thing in the place that is.
So you supporters of Obamacare, beware what you wish for. This is your future. Mine involves escaping to the Elysian Fields of private medicine where I expect to be treated like the Queen of England. I’ll let you know how that goes.
To start with, there is no such thing as a semi-private room. I was in a new ward so there were only four beds to a room instead of six. The bed itself was reclaimed from a Nottingham dungeon, consisting of metal strips on a frame topped with a thin mattress filled with lumpy pellets. But even if it had been comfortable, which it wasn’t, it would have been like trying to sleep in a bus station, there being also no such things as visiting hours. Everybody’s whole clan comes meandering through at any old time.
Then there was that one of my roommates who did not stop talking. Ever. Yes, she even talked in her sleep. For the first twelve hours or so we heard in minute detail how she cooks kebab, how she makes humus, where to buy the best pita – all of this to a roomful of fasting people in surgical ward. Then we heard replayed conversations with her daughter on clothes, where to park the car, her uncle’s business dealings with… Here I punctured my own eardrums. At one point I opened my eyes to find her standing at the foot of my bed wanting to know what was wrong with me. “How did you get that? What have you been lifting? Don’t you take care of yourself?” Only in the Middle East could you be expected to justify your life to a total stranger.
All of this would have been worth it, albeit annoying, if I had been treated. But I wasn’t. After being given an injection in the emergency room to stop my screaming, I was transferred to the ward where I was dumped on a bed and left. Eight hours later, a doctor wandered by, pushed on my stomach and left. I saw only one nurse on the ward and nobody would give me any information. The next day I was blithely told that they had no time to fix my problem and were sending me home. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
But when the elevator doors opened on the ground floor I couldn’t believe what I saw: a mall! There were bookstores, drug stores, clothing stores, restaurants – civilization! There was even a MacDonald’s. Yes, MacDonald’s in a hospital. You can chow down on a Big Mac and then go right upstairs and take your chances on a triple bypass. It’s very efficient, probably the only thing in the place that is.
So you supporters of Obamacare, beware what you wish for. This is your future. Mine involves escaping to the Elysian Fields of private medicine where I expect to be treated like the Queen of England. I’ll let you know how that goes.
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